Today Comes the End of a Long Journey

I had a usual day today — no breakfast, cab troubles, some whiteboard session, fun time with colleagues, and then boom! It all changed with a phone call at 6:30 PM. My true caller showed that the call was from Evanston, USA.

The lady on the other side: I am from the Admission Team, Kellogg School of Management. Am I pronouncing your name right — it's Aeejiitesh?

Me: (Doesn't matter, even if you call me Malfoy!) Hi, That's perfect.

The lady on the other side: Is it a good time to talk to you?

Me: (While I was writing an important email, everything in life can wait, so let's get to the point) Absolutely :)

I had all the excitement build up at this point in time.

Lady: I want to be the first one to tell you - you have been admitted to Kellogg Business School.

Me (breaking her in between, at a high pitch): Yeaaah! (My whole office started looking at me, and even the lady felt excited)

Everything in life changed after this very moment — not in a trivial real-world way but more importantly in the way it works in the imaginary, unending, and counter-productive world in our mind.

5 Year Back…

At IIT, I was a tragedy of the resource curse. I was on a good path when because of some rule changes, I had to venture into student politics, where I did pretty good — rising all the way from team member to leadership position. However, I struggled with managing time and preparing for placement seasons. Despite shortlist from all top consulting firms, I couldn't get in any. That was one of the heartbreaking days of life. In the BCG interview, I had three rounds, and I received feedback that I was best in case skills on campus, but I need to be more polished. Coming from one of the poorest regions of India, where there is a wide usage of a Hindi dialect, I wasn't polished and had a bit of accent, and the feedback was no more than a dirty laugh on my background.

There were several silly repercussions of this failure. There were some Quora answers and Facebook status written making fun of General Secretaries who couldn't break into top jobs. For these genius writers, the positions of responsibility are only about on-campus jobs. On the 6th day, after almost all my friend circle got placed, I finally received an offer from KPMG.

3 Years Back… I was in KPMG Management consulting, where I was doing good — winning awards and earning promotions. There I made the decision to venture into startups, and try my luck. Moreover, mistakenly, I felt KPMG would never take me to the top business schools.

It has been an adventurous ride - full of struggle, pain, and success. However, in the last 1 year, I struggled every damn day. I felt that I am not growing and that I am not getting what I joined for — solving a big consumer problem and making an impact, which includes building a name for myself.

I wasn’t sure to start my own startup because of multiple reasons including a lack of exciting ideas.

That’s when I decided to go for MBA My MBA journey has been an arduous struggle. I started preparation after breaking the sub-2 hour barrier in Airtel Delhi Half Marathon. I trained under professional running coaches, and achieving this difficult task with an injured knee gave me the courage to work for MBA.

For me, the GMAT was a big struggle. It took me three attempts, 2 months of the mediation session, and personal tutoring to score 750, which is a decent score. I wrote about my GMAT struggle here.

Managing application and startup work Managing time between 10–12 hours startup life, application, and family was a big challenge. However, somehow I managed to write 8 applications to be on the safer side.

I received an admit from UCLA with 100K scholarship, admit from Emory with 88K scholarship, and admit from Tepper, Kenan-Flagler, and ISB. However, the last week was a big struggle. I was waitlisted at Ross, denied after an interview at Darden, and without an interview at Yale. That’s why I felt maybe I am not Top-10 Bschool material, so I wasn’t expecting much from Kellogg. In fact, I already started with my documentation work for UCLA.

How so ever much unpredictable the result was, I always wanted to go to Kellogg. It was my dream school. Having worked mostly in product growth roles, I wanted to at a place that is focused on building lasting value and grooming growth-minded leaders.

While the decision seems right… Now, although every decision that I made in life seems right, I know I have made big mistakes in life. Today I have learned a larger lesson, which my father keeps telling me.

No decisions are right or wrong, we make them right.

Leaving KPMG was not the best decision: My friends there earned more and easily got in Top-10 school, and I almost failed. However, I worked my ass off in the startup to learn and grow — I was the first one to come office and the last one to leave, which made the difference for me. Possibly, I wouldn’t have got in Top-5 B-schools with KPMG.

Not applying in more schools in round 1: I was hopeless after my first attempt, and I applied with a 700 score. I couldn’t get into two schools I applied to — Duke and Oxford. I just kept my head down and worked on GMAT, and I excelled this time. Now, I am happy that I didn’t apply to more schools and that I didn’t get in. Otherwise, I would never have got to the place, where I wanted to be.

Last point… In the end, it all about believing in yourself and giving your 100% every damn day be it in academics, the position of responsibilities, running, job, or building startup.

Running marathons taught me one good lesson in life that I will never forget:

When the path is tough and difficult, but you believe in yourself, and you work with full faith and humility day after day despite failures and setbacks, magic happens. There is something magical about keeping your head down and giving 100% in whatever you do. Things start straightening out…

ps: Heartfelt thank you to my family and Smiley without whom this would have never been possible. Life is so easy with you.